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We have featured an additional grave at Church Island, Menai Bridge, after historian Hazel Pierce provided the sad tale of Edna Pritchard, buried there in 1935. After her wealthy father's demise, Edna entered Oxford ...

David Davies played a big part in the shaping of modern Wales, and nowhere more so than in Barry, where his statue stands. Starting with sawing timber and improving drainage on farms in Powys, he moved on to engineering …

The third bridge over the Monmouthshire & Brecon Canal, starting from the Brecon terminus, might look just like the canal’s other original bridges. But this one has a second arch, easily missed as you pass on foot or …

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Jan 4, 2019

Engineering the shape of Wales

David Davies played a big part in the shaping of modern Wales, and nowhere more so than in Barry, where his statue stands. Starting with sawing timber and improving drainage on farms in Powys, he moved on to engineering …

Category: General

Posted by: genestevo

new railways. Having founded the Ocean Coal Company in the Rhondda, he took on the powerful Bute family – which controlled Cardiff’s congested docks – and created a rival dock in Barry, with new railways to bring coal from the Valleys. He used his wealth to fund Methodist chapels around Wales, preached temperance to his workers and became a Liberal MP. For more of his story, use your smartphone or tablet to scan the HistoryPoints QR codes on the small concrete plinth behind the statue (south of Vale of Glamorgan Council’s Barry Dock offices). Or click here